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What constitutes tanking? Topic

Posted by jlinchec on 11/24/2013 11:30:00 AM (view original):Another thing - if you are unhappy if the worst teams getting the best players in the draft, the solution isn't to randomize the prospects -- the solution is to randomize the draft order. Move to a lottery for the draft order with all of the non-playoff teams.

Not everything in HBD matches up to real life baseball. (Salary cap) So you could move to the NBA-style draft lottery and take care of the perceived issue. Suddenly, a team who missed the playoffs by one game could get the top pick in the draft and the worst team could draft in the teens. Make it weighted or non-weighted. Maybe even let each league be different - pick how you handle the draft order yourself: Standard, weighted lottery, non-weighted lottery. Be a reason for people to have more then one team.

I think this is a fantastic idea. I've never had a pick better than #5 in all of my seasons...I love the idea of moving to NBA-style. Too bad they don't update the game anymore!

Speaking of nuance, I want to recall sergei91's post on Page 1 regarding "soft tanking." I've noticed you don't have to full out tank to get the desired result. If you full out tank, play someone clearly out of position, leave your best players in the minors, you'll get called out by other owners. But I've also seen this done - sign a Type A free agent for a big pile of money, but it's the type of player who can't play up to his Overall. Your budget is spent. Your team has good ratings. You may not have been trying really hard - but you were "trying."

I know I am newish to this game but I have had some success pretty quickly without tanking at all, but....

Is the object of the game not to win within the rules?? So if you tank and win have you not accomplished your goal? Play within the rules and your fine by me. I find tanking to be an unnecessary but acceptable strategy if the league rules allow it.

If you dislike tanking why would you join a league that allows it? Stop ******** and play in the proper league.

You're exactly right. Well, except for the entire premise of your post, that bit about tanking being within the rules. Other than that, well stated. And surely even with your userid's limited experience, you know that rules can limit but not eliminate all tanking. As noted in more-intelligent posts above, there are shades of tanking and no set of rules is going to eliminate 100% of it, or even be able to define it with complete accuracy. But even if it hasn't always effectively enforced it, WIS does ban the practice.

From the HBD Fair Play Guidelines:
"… it is not permitted to intentionally field an overly atrocious team when a much better team could have been assembled at the same cost and time commitment. … If it's clear the owner is tanking or has abandoned his team, the franchise will be stripped and assigned to the designated replacement owner."

I know I am newish to this game but I have had some success pretty quickly without tanking at all, but....

Is the object of the game not to win within the rules?? So if you tank and win have you not accomplished your goal? Play within the rules and your fine by me. I find tanking to be an unnecessary but acceptable strategy if the league rules allow it.

If you dislike tanking why would you join a league that allows it? Stop ******** and play in the proper league.

In the big picture, tanking, even within the rules, harms a world. When owners look for good worlds to join, they discard the world where 1-2 owners dominate after stringing together several 110 loss seasons. Then, when that world has trouble filling, they wonder how WifS will "fix" HBD.

In my eyes, it's perfectly acceptable to play with the big picture in mind. However, working to build a "superteam" by racing to the bottom is ultimately bad for a world. It's why astute owners join leagues with more strict limits for wins than the HBD minimum. At some point, you realize the worlds that are legitimately challenging with quality owners don't have the problem of teams dominating for multiple seasons based on building from the bottom. This happens because we all know that tanking is a "sure-fire" method that works in this game. Some owners want more of challenge than that.

The thing missing from this game, and it's been covered multiple times in many threads, is the lack of repercussion from playing to lose. For example, your bottom line doesn't suffer from crummy attendance that would inevitably result. The only thing I've seen in HBD that is effective is minimum win requirements. At least in that sense, it's like you being a GM are accountable for losing seasons and the owner firing you if you don't perform.

One thing, I don't think you can categorize someone that doesn't spend free agents $$ as someone that is tanking. I, for one, never spend money in free agency. I have found some players to fill holes and spent $4-5MM a year. I believe the good free agents(type A and some B's) go for 50-100% more than they are worth. Yes, there is the rare exception with the top 1% of the players that are actually worth $15-20MM a year. But then you are also typically bidding on a player that is 30+ years old. And you have to sign him for 4-5 years. Which then puts your franchise in a hole when the player is 35+ yrs old and not producing up to his salary.

I spent my first 4 season of HBD learning the all nuances of the game, while fielding a playoff team each season and 1 game away from a world series berth. I spent $76-94MM a season and then saw my wins total start to decline in season 5. I then decided to rebuild. I believe in winning through development, not buying free agents. My goal when I rebuilt was to take ANYTHING worth value and trade it away for some type of prospect. I specifically wanted certain types of players with specific ratings. Kind of a "Money Ball" theory. I went in and rated every player in every teams minor leagues that I thought were ML prospects. I did a spreadsheet to target those players that met the couple of specific ratings I wanted. I wanted to acquire 5-6 ML level prospects a season, 1 through the draft, 1 from IFA, and 2-5 through trades. Sometimes I would trade and take on salary just to trade the same player away for prospects. Then I would trade 2-3 mid level prospects for a higher level prospects. And so on and so on. I made 40-50 trades in a 5-6 season. Even though I had low salaries and 55 wins seasons. I really built my franchise through trades while playing with proper people at proper positions and well rested. But I would not spend money on free agents. I still don't to this day. To overspend and to lose a draft pick on top of it, doesn't make any sense to me.

During this rebuilding time, I went in and checked my lineup every game and made sure I had the best lineup going against the pitcher I was facing. I wanted to win every game even though I did not have the talent to back it up. I did not care about draft positions. Wherever I ended up at the end of the season is where I ended up.

One last thing, some people believe and criticized me that I did not bring up players soon enough. While I find most people bring up players too early. I use a soft line of 90% development before bringing up a player to the ML. Even if he may be able to handle the ML level earlier, I will wait because I believe that players do not develop as fast at the ML level not matter what year they are in. And if I bring them up before my 90% rule they will never get close to their full potential. Everyone has their opinion but that is my belief.

I will admit I have held a prospect back at the end of a season or the beginning of one just to wait the 20 games and save a year of arbitration. But you constantly see this in the real ML as well, even with some of the highest payroll teams.

I do not believe in my heart I tanked. I never wanted to lose a single game. I had a goal in mind and a specific direction to acquire very specific type of players. It did take me 4 seasons to do it but I will never have to rebuild that way again because of the way I continue maintain my payroll and my minor league prospects. Even after winning I continue to be at the top of the league in the amount of trades every year. If someone were to really dive in and look thoroughly look at how I rebuilt my franchise, I was very methodical while still putting money into training, medical, scouting, and coaches.

Sometimes a franchise does need to totally be broken down to the bare bones to be built back up.

>> I believe that players do not develop as fast at the ML level not matter what year they are in. And if I bring them up before my 90% rule they will never get close to their full potential. Everyone has their opinion but that is my belief. <<

It seems there are facts that disprove this belief. Can you present a single example to support this belief? I've seen lots of players in seasons 1-4 continue to improve at expected rates in the ML.

There are always going to be exceptions to the rule. I said it was a soft rule. Obviously it would not apply to a player of Grover Hernandez's stature (complete stud!) But for the majority of players, I constantly see players come up and there overall ratings growth slows way down. At the same time as my 90% rule I try to give hitters 1500 AB's or 750 innings for starters in the minors. And going back to Grover, he was at 88 overall when you brought him up, so he basically was at 90% of his overall potential (I can't see what is overall projected ratings is).

But aside from the exceptions to the rule, I constantly see players, as an example, with an 85-86 overall rating and owners bringing them up with only 2-3 seasons in the minors and they are at, say, 67 overall rating. Just because they cannot be patient and give them time to fully develop.